


Childhood Games

by Shiori_Makiba



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Attempted Murder, Brian Banner's A+ Parenting, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Neglect, Consider Your Headspace, Gen, Heed Trigger Warnings, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Memory Loss, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6666136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiori_Makiba/pseuds/Shiori_Makiba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers have played games all their lives. Some of these games were more fun than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steve Rogers

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Love Is for Children](https://archiveofourown.org/works/684731) by [Ysabetwordsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabetwordsmith/pseuds/Ysabetwordsmith). 



> Inspired by a prompt given by MASHfanficchick during my April 2016 Thank Muse Its Friday session.

Steve's favorite game was baseball.  
He didn't get to play it very often.  
He was sick too much and  
even when he wasn't,  
most of the other kids in the neighborhood  
weren't interested in playing with him.

All except one.  
Bucky was always willing  
to play with him.  
Sick or well.  
He refused to play with the other kids  
if they didn't let Steve play.

Steve asked him about that once.  
Why he didn't leave Steve behind  
and go off with the others?  
Especially when it was a nice, pretty day  
and Steve stuck inside doing nothing  
but struggling to breathe.

“'Cause you're my little brother Stevie.  
You don't just leave your little brother  
when he needs ya.”

When Steve was too sick for outdoor games,  
they played other things.  
Like jacks and tiddlewinks and card games.  
Their jacks, tiddlywinks, and deck of cards  
was old and battered but it was still good  
enough to play with.

One of the neighbors gave them  
an equally battered set of  
The Landlord's Game. 

Some of its game pieces were missing  
but pebbles made a fine substitute.

They took it with them to the orphanage.  
They had to share it but Steve didn't mind.  
It was nice to have someone other than  
Bucky to play with.

Not that Bucky wasn't great  
but even brothers didn't want to be around  
each other all the time.

During the war,  
he mostly played card games  
when they had down time.

No matter where they were  
or who they were working with,  
there was always a couple decks of cards.

Everyone relished a chance do something  
that wasn't marching, shooting, or being shot at.  
Even if it was playing a couple of rounds of 'Go Fish'  
because they were all too tired for anything more complicated  
but too buzzed to sleep.

Steve still played games  
through baseball had a  
new set of challenges.  
Namely it was a little hard for him  
not to hit the ball so hard  
that it went way too far.  
Or he broke the bat.  
Or the ball.

At least he didn't break cards.  
Not yet anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (4/27): Minor typo corrections


	2. Bucky Barnes

The Soldier could only remember fragments  
from Before and only sometimes.

All the fragments featured a tall  
but very skinny kid with blonde hair  
and big blue eyes.

He couldn't remember the kid's name.  
Just that the kid was important to him.  
Very important.

In the fragments, sometimes he remember throwing  
a round object (a ball) at the boy  
and having the boy throw it back at him.

Or running thin rectangle disks (cards)  
through his hands.  
Confusingly in some of the card fragments,  
there is a big blonde guy that he knows is the kid.  
They have the same eyes.

He cherishes those fragments in those few brief moments  
before cold and pain steal them away.

He knows that he has to be away  
from the pain and cold for a while  
for anything other than Mission  
to get through the haze that blurs everything  
from Before into a smeared mess.

Most of the time  
they don't leave him out  
that long.

He thinks.  
It's hard to be sure how long  
he has been locked in dark and cold  
or so consumed by the Mission that  
Before cannot surface.

Bucky is better at remembering now.  
It's easier when there is no pain and  
no cold trying to steal his memories.  
With a reminder, he can remember his own name.  
Where he is, when he is, that he is safe.

While he cannot always remember his name  
or everything they shared,  
he always gets to remember the idea of Steve.  
He gets to keep what fragments  
that don't scatter out of reach.

Like memories of playing catching.  
And tiddlywinks which Stevie,  
for some reason, has always been terrible at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (4/27): Typo corrections


	3. Natasha Romanov

In the Red Room, there was only one game.  
It was Survival.

If you won,   
that meant you got to live.  
For another hour, another day,  
another week, another month,  
another year.

If you lost, you were dead.  
Dead with your body was cut into pieces  
to see why you failed.  
Or dead with your body was simply thrown  
in the pit and buried in the cold ground.  
Sometimes the loser wasn't all the way dead  
when they did those things.

They made sure the girls knew this.  
Made them watch.  
Understand that if they weren't very good,  
didn't do exactly as they were told,  
that would be their fate.

They believed them.

Natasha knew about other games of course.  
Just like she knew about popular movies, books,  
music, and television.  
She had to know about them  
if she was to remain unseen  
by her targets  
until it was too late for them.

She could recite their rules verbatim,  
spin stories of past triumphant and failures  
about almost any game.  
No one ever realized that the stories were all lies.  
That her sitting down to play the game against  
or with her mark was often the first time she had actually  
played that game.

She didn't hate or enjoy them.  
It was like everything else in the mission.  
Just something you did.  
Like eating, sleeping, and killing.

It wasn't until after she had gotten out,   
after she had meet Clint and Phil,  
that she discovered that games could be fun.  
But it was Game Night that really cemented  
that it could be fun.

That while she enjoyed winning  
that she didn't have to win at all costs.

That losing something simply meant  
starting a new round  
with no greater consequences.

She liked that.


	4. Tony Stark

Tony had always had a lot of toys  
but he never had a lot of games.  
Because games usually needed  
more than one person to play.  
And most of the time  
he didn't have anyone to play with.

Jarvis would play with him  
but only when he didn't have something  
that had to be done.

Which was a lot  
but not as often as his father.  
But he never screamed  
at Tony for asking to play  
and always kept his promise  
to play later.

Through they usually had  
to keep their games a secret.  
Because father liked to  
spoil everything.

Aunt Peggy would also play with him.  
And Father couldn't spoil those games.  
Because Aunt Peggy was a boss.

After Jarvis died,  
Tony had no one to play with  
except Aunt Peggy  
who lived far away.

He learned games  
that he could play  
by himself.

One of which was  
Piss Off Howard.  
It was easy  
but he still tried  
to spoil everything fun.

Sometimes he'd get to play games with other people.  
Through people objected to playing Blackjack  
with him after the first time.  
Bunch of sore losers they were.  
Just because they couldn't keep track  
of the cards in their head.  
That one especially annoyed the casinos.  
Many of them wouldn't let him  
play there anymore.

Except for the ones he owned.  
They had to let him play.  
Because he was the boss.  
Through he still hadn't learned  
how to be as boss as Aunt Peggy.

He didn't do it very often.  
It just wasn't fun.

Rhodey would play games with him  
but like the others before him,  
Rhodey was either busy or far away a lot.

He and Pepper didn't play conventional games.  
Their game was more like  
oneupmanship than anything else.

But it was fun in its own way.  
Because Pepper didn't back down.  
And she was a lot smarter than  
most of the people who tried to play  
oneupmanship against him.

When they weren't making stuff,  
JARVIS and the bots would play with him.  
And with each other.  
They were good kids.

Then along came the Avengers,  
Uncle Phil, and Game Night.  
What really made Game Night  
for Tony was the checkers.  
Not only were the others  
willing to play with him,  
Phil had taught him  
how to play a game.  
Tony already knew  
how to play checkers  
but he had taught himself.  
Phil was the first person  
to teach him  
how to play anything.

It was the best feeling  
in the world.


	5. Bruce Banner

Bruce didn't have a  
favorite childhood game.  
But he had one that  
he had gotten very good at.

It was called Invisible.  
All you needed to play was yourself  
and at least one other person.

It was a very simple game.  
You had to be as quiet  
and as still as you could be.  
If you were still enough  
and quiet enough,  
the other person left you alone.

If you moved too much  
or made too noise,  
you paid the price.  
Paying the price was awful.  
Bruce did everything  
he could think of to avoid it.  
Sometimes he succeeded.  
Sometimes he failed.

His first opponent in Invisible  
was his father.  
That one was the hardest  
because when Bruce was little  
it was harder for him  
to be quiet and still.

And sometimes  
Father broke the rules  
and made him pay the price even  
when he had been  
completely silent and still.

He played against  
the kids at school  
who hated him.  
Usually for being smarter  
than them.  
But he had gotten good at Invisible  
so a lot of the time while they raged  
about Bruce Banner and his perfect grades,  
they weren't sure which of the silent, geeky kids  
at the school was Bruce Banner.

Sometimes that meant  
they beat them all up just be sure  
they had gotten Bruce Banner.  
But sometimes that meant  
they just complained  
and didn't hit anyone.

His next big opponent was General Ross.  
It was both easy and hard to play against him.  
Easy because Bruce was now very good at Invisible.  
Harder because General Ross had the tenacity  
of a starving dog with a bone.  
And because the Other Guy was terrible at Invisible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were curious about why Bruce doesn't mention Game Night - it's because Bruce doesn't like to talk about things he enjoys. Because people have a terrible habit of taking those things away from him.
> 
> EDIT (4/27): Typo corrections


	6. The Hulk

Hulk was learning about games.  
Before the Tower,  
there were no games.

Only sleeping and waking up  
tasting Puny Bruce's fear and pain.  
Surrounded by punies who hit him  
with their stingies and booms.

The stingies and booms did not stop Hulk  
but they did hurt.  
And not just when they hit Hulk either.  
Because stingies and booms  
were very very smelly and  
very very noisy.

Hulk did the smart thing and  
got him and Puny Bruce away  
from such loud, smelly meanies.

Not that Puny Bruce ever say thank you.  
Instead he worry, worry  
about how Hulk had smashed  
some of the meanies and  
things getting away from them.

Hulk didn't understand why  
Puny Bruce was mad at Hulk.

He told the punies to go away,  
to leave Hulk alone before smashing.  
They never listened.  
It was their fault.  
But only Hulk get in trouble.  
It wasn't fair.

Things were better now.  
The others were teaching Hulk  
about fun things.

And Puny Bruce was  
getting less mean,  
less worry, worry,  
didn't squeeze Hulk so much.

Maybe one day he'd stop hurting  
Hulk altogether.  
Maybe one day, he and Bruce  
could have fun together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (4/27): Typo corrections


	7. Clint Barton

Clint's favorite game  
was hide and seek.

He started playing it young.  
Through sometimes it wasn't very fun.  
Like when the yelling got loud.  
Barney would tell him to hide  
and not come out until he said  
it was okay.  
That could be a long time.  
And sometimes Clint  
didn't hide well enough.

Those were the worst.

But Clint got better at hiding.  
Mostly by discovering that  
people almost never look up.  
So as long as you hide up,  
you could hide from anyone  
for almost forever.

This lesson was handy at home.  
Handy at the foster house.  
And very handy at the circus.

Through it was harder to hide at the circus.  
Because circus people know to look up.  
But up still had many advantages.  
It was hard to sneak up on his hiding place  
without him noticing you.

And he got better at picking spots  
so that even up-looking circus people  
had difficulty finding Clint  
when he didn't want to be found.

Which was a lot more often than Clint wanted.  
Most of the people at the circus were nice enough  
but a couple of them were mean drunks.

And Barney had turned into  
someone to hide from.  
No longer did his big brother  
finding him meant  
everything was safe.  
And that hurt worse than  
being punched in the mouth.

Through not as much  
as that final beating.  
And that final abandonment.  
Barney had left him.  
Left him to die.

Hide-and-seek was useful  
in his after-circus career.  
People still almost never looked up.  
Even when rumors reached their ears  
about being hunted.

He still got found once in a while.  
Good shooting spot did not always mean  
especially good hiding spot.  
But Clint had gotten pretty good  
at disappearing.

He got better after falling in  
with the Men-in-Black.  
Through the ultimate tests came  
after they found Natasha.

For someone who didn't know  
much about playing,  
she was a hide-and-seek master.

Natasha is very good at hiding  
but she's even better at seeking.  
Usually she lets Clint do the hiding  
while she seeks their target.

One of the nicest things about Game Night  
was remembering how much fun things  
like hide-and-seek could be.

That it wasn't just a tool for his job  
or a means of survival.  
Where getting found simply meant  
he was It next round.

Through he wasn't often.  
Clint was still a good hider  
and the Tower had a lot  
of good hiding places.  
Especially since JARVIS  
promised not to let anyone cheat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (4/27): Typo corrections


End file.
